How to Have Great Ideas is the essential guide for students and young professionals looking to embrace creative thinking in design, advertising and communications. It provides 53 practical strategies for unlocking innovative ideas. Strategies include improvisation techniques, changing the scenery, finding hidden links, looking to nature for inspiration, combining unusual systems, challenging set boundaries and many more. Each strategy is packed with great examples of successful contemporary and historical designs – from a designer dress made out of an old typewriter to ticket machines powered by recycled bottles in China, via the reimagining of famous brand logos and mis-use of photocopiers. Packed with practical projects to kick-start inventive thought in idea-blocked moments, this book explores creative thinking across all visual arts disciplines.

Everybody wants to be creative. Creativity makes life more fun, more interesting and more full of achievement, but too many people believe that creativity is something you are born with and cannot be learned. In How to Have Creative Ideas Edward de Bono - the leading authority on creative thinking - outlines 62 different games and exercises, built around random words chosen from a list, to help encourage creativity and lateral thinking. For example, if the task were to provide an idea for a new restaurant and the random word chosen was 'cloak', ideas generated might be: a highwayman theme; a Venetian theme with gondolas; masked waiters and waitresses. Or, if asked to make a connection between the two random words 'desk' and 'shorts', readers may come up with: both are functional; desks have 'knee holes' and shorts expose the knees; traditionally they were both male-associated items. All the exercises are simple, practical and fun, and can be done by anyone.

This engaging and highly regarded book takes readers through the key stages of their PhD research journey, from the initial ideas through to successful completion and publication. It gives helpful guidance on forming research questions, organising ideas, pulling together a final draft, handling the viva and getting published. Each chapter contains a wealth of practical suggestions and tips for readers to try out and adapt to their own research needs and disciplinary style. This text will be essential reading for PhD students and their supervisors in humanities, arts, social sciences, business, law, health and related disciplines.

IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us. Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.

48 Techniques to Boost Your Creativity at Home, According to Science Creativity isn’t all in your head. Sometimes it’s in what's around you—especially when you’re at home. For over twenty years, scientists have been discovering connections between our physical surroundings and the creative mind. Written by a noted architect, My Creative Space is the first book to turn this rich trove of psychological research into practical techniques for shaping a home that will boost your creativity. Here’s a sampling of the techniques you’ll learn about: Which colors lead to peak creative performance How furniture affects idea flow Pros and cons of messy versus neat environments Optimal lighting and noise levels for achieving insights How memorabilia can break creative logjams Why ceiling height matters Which scents improve creative problem solving And more Illustrating the book's 48 techniques are over 200 high-quality photos of interiors from around the world, many the work of top-tier architects, designers, and creatives. Whether you pursue creativity for pleasure or profit, whether you’re a writer, entrepreneur, work in a creative industry, or simply enjoy doing creative things, this book will help you do them better. No prior expertise in design psychology required! *Winner, 2019 Gold Medal Award, Nonfiction Authors Association

The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill. “Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall? We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how.

“This book completely changed the way I think about creative innovation. . . . A must read” (Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work). Business leaders say they want creativity and need real innovation in order to thrive. But according to startling research from management professor Jennifer Mueller, these same leaders chronically reject creative solutions, even as they profess commitment to innovation. Mueller’s research reveals that it’s not just CEOs but educators, parents, and other social trendsetters who struggle to accept new and creative ideas. Mueller parses the tough questions these findings raise. Do we all have an inherent prejudice against creative ideas? Can we learn to outsmart this bias? Creative Change combines analysis of the latest research with practical guidance on how to shift your mindset, and offers a wealth of counterintuitive recommendations to help you embrace the creative ideas you want. “If we all crave creativity so much, why do we reject new ideas so often? Jen Mueller’s smart new book unravels this puzzle.” —Daniel H. Pink, New York Times–bestselling author of When and Drive “Mueller, an accomplished scholar in the management field, has developed a well-formulated argument for creativity. Her ideas and research need to be available to academics, business practitioners, and, really, everyone.” —Library Journal

"Innovation Generation presents a fascinating new approach to creative thinking. Using a system of idea-generating methods honed over her illustrious career as a physician, researcher, professor, teacher, and Dean, Roberta Ness provides all the tools needed to learn how to cast aside habitual cognitive maps called frames and draw insights from other fields.

Originally published: Burbank, Calif.: Science of Mind Pub., 1973. With new foreword.

Don't let your creative ideas get picked apart and put down! If you're like most creative people, chances are high that you've had your share of ideas rejected by clients or decision makers. While we sometimes make the mistake of believing ideas should sell themselves, the fact is that the better and bolder the idea, the more it needs selling. This book contains powerful techniques to help you sell your ideas to those with approval power. You'll find tips from designers, writers, marketers and other creative professionals, along with meaty advice from selling and branding gurus. In no time, you'll be able to convince those who hold the purse strings that your ideas are worth pursuing and investing in. "Designers have a little known secret: Designing something is the easy part, getting others, specifically clients, to embrace that design is the real hard part. Harrison has put together dozens of tips that, if applied correctly, independently or in unison, will help you get those great design ideas approved." —Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio, authors of Graphic Design, Referenced